Behavioural Research Group
Workshop for Marketing Research Professionals
 

Miami, Florida

The World Trade Center, Miami, Florida, 777 N. W. 72nd Street, Suite 3BB65

Limited Space Available


Discrete Choice Analysis (DCA) allows us to understand the behavioural process that leads to an individual's choice. This is accomplished by statistical models which describe decision-makers' choices among alternatives. The decision-makers can be people, households, firms, or any other decision making unit, and the alternatives might represent competing products, courses of action, or any other option or items over which choices must be made. DCA is based on administering a series of choice-based experiments, where respondents are shown different products or services, with each product or service having different attributes. For example, respondents might be shown four different computer models, each model having a different CPU speed, Ram, hard drive capacity, weight, and price. This choice-based experience is repeated over and over again, each time the attributes for each product are changed. In some cases, individuals are given the opportunity to select none of the products or services on the list, thus simulating as closely as possible the true purchasing environment.


Applications:

  • Predicting the Sales and market share penetration of new products
  • Predicting the Sales and market share penetration of competitors' new products
  • Predicting the effectiveness of product marketing (features, packaging/labeling, pricing, distributing, promoting, packaging) strategies
  • Understanding Brand-shifting Behaviour
  • Predicting the effect of sales promotions
  • Market segmentation based on decision making behaviour
  • Measuring and predicting Brand-Switching Behaviour
  • Predicting how changes to a product's packaging, pricing, advertising, and distribution will affect Sales and Market Share
  • Understanding consumer decision making behaviour

Advantage over Conjoint Analysis:

Discrete choice holds a number of advantages over traditional conjoint analysis including:

It is a more realistic exercise for individuals to indicate which product they would purchase rather than rating/ranking since this is what they actually do in the marketplace.  In discrete choice, individuals can be given the option to select “none” of the products, thus indicating that they do not find any of the products appealing.

Discrete choice allows for much more complex statistical modeling to be performed, which often yields better data (e.g., interactions, alternative–specific effects, cross-effects, etc., can be accommodated). As with traditional conjoint analysis, the utilities that come from discrete choice can be used to develop market simulators and can also be used to examine whether different segments exist, which use different decision making rules. 


Stated Preference and Revealed Preference:

Revealed preference relates to individuals' actual historic choices, such as the car they own, or brand of coffee they recently purchased. Stated preference relates to future choices, and is assessed in an experimental setting, where choices are made in hypothetical situations. Individuals are repeatedly asked to select among a group of products or services, while each time each product attribute, such as price, quality, size, colour, etc, changes.

Advantages / Disadvantages of Revealed Preferences:

  • reflects actual choices
  • choices are limited to the products and services presently available in the marketplace
  • no variation may exist in relation to some attributes, such as the price of electricity (everyone is charged the same price)

Advantages of Stated Preference:

  • assesses consumer behaviour to new products / services
  • allows for the assessment of variation in product attributes that do not exist in reality, such as the price of electricity
  • what individuals say they will do is often not the same as what they actually do

Combining revealed preference and stated preference allows us to capture the advantages of each approach.


Past Choices Reveal Future Choices:

The choices a person makes at one point in his/her life may have an impact on the options or choices available to him/her in the future. Taking individuals' previous choices into consideration allows for more accurate predictions of future choices. It also allows for the assessment of market share shifts, and shifts in brand loyalty.

Discrete Choice Analysis: Predict Consumers' Future Behaviour


TYPES OF Discrete Choice Models:

  • Logit 
  • Probit 
  • GEV 
  • Mixed Logit 
  • Latent Class Logit
  • Hierarchical Bayes Mixed Logit

What you will learn:

  • When each type of discrete choice model is most appropriate
     
  • How to estimate each type of discrete choice model
     
  • How to interpret the results of each model
     
  • How to simulate future changes in consumer preferences, and market share, based on changes in product attributes
     
  • How to segment consumer choice into sub-groups, using individual level information provided by latent class choice models, or probit / mixed logit models.

Hands on learning:

Learn by doing. Attendees will need to bring a laptop. Attendees will be able to use discrete choice analysis by the completion of this course.


Predict How Consumers will React in the Future

Using Discrete Choice Analysis (DCA), researchers can understand how consumers will react in the future, before changes to the marketing mix are instituted. In other words, before a product's packaging is altered, retail price is changed, advertising campaign is launched, or new product is developed. DCA can be used to determine the effect of such changes on sales, and market share. Moreover, one can also assess the effect of such changes to the marketing mix on competitors' sales and market share. Almost any "What if" question can be answered.

Growing sales and profits fundamentally depends on understanding how your customer thinks. Victory in marketing warfare belongs to the firm that best understands how consumers think.

                        


Advantage over other Workshops / Courses

Unlike other courses teaching discrete choice analysis, we do not use only one software package. As this workshop is not a means of marketing software, it will be taught using all the leading software packages: LEM, Nlogit, Latent Choice, Guass, and Winbugs. Each software package has its advantages and disadvantages. In addition, this course teaches you to use a variety of discrete choice models, not only models specific to one type of software package being marketed.

Attendees will learn by doing. Multiple examples will be used throughout the workshop.

                        

2 Day Workshop: $1950.00 US

Attendees must provide their own laptop.

Other Workshops

More Information About BRG

This workshop is intended for Market Researchers.

Application Form

Course outline

A detailed course outline is available upon request.

Behavioural Research Group, First Canadian Place, Suite 350, Toronto, Ontario, M5X 1C1

www.brg.ca

Telephone: 416-885-1712

Email: Administration@brg.ca